I have just installed Ubuntu to my flash drive and I am putting grub on it as well so that I can choose between a couple of different OS's to boot off my flash drive. I can not figure out how to refer to the frugal, or usb, installation of Ubuntu in grub. Does anyone know how to do this?

PS: I am sorry if this is posted somewhere else on these forums, but I looked for a long time here, and all over the internet for a solution and could not find one.

Thanks,
Kaleb

caljohnsmith

May 5th, 2009, 04:34 PM

So what method did you use to install Ubuntu to your flash drive? Also, when it comes to booting issues, a good place to start is to download the Boot Info Script to your Ubuntu desktop (can be a Live CD desktop):

https://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

Then open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and do:

sudo bash ~/Desktop/boot_info_script*.sh
That will create a "RESULTS.txt" file in the same directory from where the script is run, namely your desktop; please copy/paste the contents of the RESULTS.txt file to your next post, highlight the copied text, and click the pound/hash sign "#" graphic button in the Ubuntu forum message box so that the text will get "code" tags put around it. The results of that script will help clarify your setup and hopefully what it might take to boot your OSes on your flash drive.

John

kac0802

May 6th, 2009, 05:17 AM

I used the usb installer (System > Administration > USB Startup Disk Creator).
I haven't finished setting up the grub menu.lst file yet. So far, I just copied it from my hard drive install and changed the first entry in attempt to make it bootable.

File system: vfat
Boot sector type: Fat16
Boot sector info: According to the info in the boot sector, sdb2 starts
at sector 0. But according to the info from fdisk,
sdb2 starts at sector 63. According to the info in the
boot sector, sdb2 has 0 sectors.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs: /grub/menu.lst

## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not use 'savedefault' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system.
default 0

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'vol_id --uuid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=9a9cc024-2520-4183-a7bf-52c7fd0a91fb / ext4 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=c2077751-5128-4562-8040-bf2e3f08422a none swap sw 0 0

## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not use 'savedefault' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system.
default saved

I have just installed Ubuntu to my flash drive and I am putting grub on it as well so that I can choose between a couple of different OS's to boot off my flash drive. I can not figure out how to refer to the frugal, or usb, installation of Ubuntu in grub. Does anyone know how to do this?

PS: I am sorry if this is posted somewhere else on these forums, but I looked for a long time here, and all over the internet for a solution and could not find one.

Thanks,
Kaleb

I know. You need to use the majic "iso-scan" boot parameter. First, extract the kernel and initrd from the ISO. Then, put all three files in some directory. Finally, add something like this to menu.lst: